


Day Four

by walkerofthestars



Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Conner Kent is Superboy, Conner forgets that Dick is only human sometimes, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick gets captured in the raid of the mountain, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, caged buried alive collapsed building, it's okay he's probably not th eonly one, rewrite of Darkest, running out of time, season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28087971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkerofthestars/pseuds/walkerofthestars
Summary: Whumptober 2020Running out of timeCaged, buried alive, collapsed building“Superboy to… uh,” he took a breath, “all members, can anyone hear me?”Static.“this is Superboy contacting all communicators, Mount Justice has been destroyed, requesting assistance.”Silence.“can anyone hear me?!”
Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055567
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Day Four

**Author's Note:**

> I have to wonder why the terror twins and Icycle Jnr. weren't suspiscious of Kaldur not taking Nightwing when they kidnapped heroes during the mountain raid. cause like... he's human? wouldn't he come under the list of heroes they should take to be tested for the meta gene?   
> Which makes me wonder how things would have gone if he had been captured because Kaldur couldn't come up with a lie fast enough.

Conner woke up suddenly, eyes snapping open, body tensing, breathing fast and heartbeat faster than a marathon runner.

It was dark.

He took a deep breath, the air was stale and smelled like dust. What happened? Where was he?

Right. Mount justice. Kaldur just blew up the cave.

Which meant he could be stuck under tons of debris, how was he alive?

He moved about, slow and careful, he didn’t want to trigger the rocks to crush him. from what he could gather, the rock above him was rather large and was leaning against the rock beneath his feet, creating a gap of air. As he moved his left arm ached, his forearm was pinned.

Could he lift the debris? If he did would he trigger a collapse?

Instead of answering any of those questions just yet he squeezed his arm through the gap and grabbed his communicator from his belt. It seemed to have survived the explosion.

“Superboy to… uh,” he took a breath, “all members, can anyone hear me?”

Static.

“this is Superboy contacting all communicators, Mount Justice has been destroyed, requesting assistance.”

Silence.

“can anyone hear me?!”

His communicator’s static continued, then crackled.

“Wa-sssshhhh-er to Sup-“ the line hiccupped, crackling, “where ar-“

Superboy sighed, relieved to hear that his signal was at least being picked up.

“I was caught in the explosion,” he said slowly, hoping that’d help whoever was on the other side of the line figure out what he was saying, “requesting assistance.”

“are-“ it crackled, “inju-d?”

“my arm is pinned under the rocks, but otherwise I’m fine,” he said, “just, you know, stuck under some rocks.”

“we’re o-“ the static crackled over the words but he managed to hear, “sit tight.”

He rolled his eyes. ‘sit tight’. What else was he going to do?

He took a deep breath, realising that it was getting slowly harder to take a full lungful of air. The dusty smell was stronger and the back of his throat felt dry.

How long did he have? What if the league got here and he had run out of oxygen?

Was anyone else caught?

Bart and Jaime were captured, he knew that much. Was Beast Boy as well? What about Nightwing?

No, Nightwing would have gotten out. He could take care of himself. If there was one thing Conner had learned in the past five years it was that Dick Grayson was untouchable.

He felt a pang at remembering the early days of the team. When Kaldur had been their leader and best friend, not their enemy and a traitor. When Artemis was alive. when Wally wasn’t almost as angry as Conner. When M’Gann was sweet and hopeful, not jaded by the world and her own self-hatred. When Dick was Robin and not Nightwing. Although what was wrong with Nightwing?

Nothing much, Conner supposed, but he distinctly remembered Dick not wanting to be Batman. nowadays it almost felt like he was straying into it. although, he couldn’t judge. Nightwing was leading the team against an alien invasion, without his mentor and several other leaguers, while the media and public opinion of them was the worst it had been in years. He had every right to be becoming more like Batman as he was faced with even harder decisions.

That didn’t mean Conner had to be happy about it. he was allowed to wish they could travel back five years to when things were simpler and they were all together, unstoppable.

The air seemed thin.

Was he going to die down here?

Was that what this mountain was going to become? His grave?

How ironic. He almost snickered. This was his first home, a place that held almost every good memory he had. He didn’t know if it was sad that he would die there or if it was somehow right in a poetic sense.

He was a twenty one year old who’d lived five years, in a sixteen year old’s body. God his life was a mess.

He’d been told to ‘sit tight’. But also… he didn’t intend to just sit around waiting to die. He could be trapped very far under, considering how thin the air was getting, it could take a while to safely excavate the rock above him.

So he tested his limits.

He squeezed his right arm between him and the rock above him, the space was only just big enough. He took a deep breath and pushed.

The weight on his left arm decreased but with it came a flash of pain. He grit his teeth and kept going. The rocks shuddered, the dusty smell increased. But it seemed like it would be okay…

And then something shifted and a rock moved. He heard the shriek of stone crashing against stone and then his legs screamed.

He grimaced and dropped the rock. It crashed, rocking and settling once more. He couldn’t move as much now, the rock had settled and it was closer to him. there was more dust in the air and he held back a sneeze. He took a deep breath, it almost required as much energy as lifting the rock had.

This was, in hindsight, probably why they’d said to ‘sit tight’.

Well, what did they expect? A guy with superstrength is stuck under rocks, what’s he gonna do? Nothing? No. why would he do that? No, let’s try and lift a mountain’s worth of rocks. Why? Because he didn’t think this through, that’s why!

But now he was very stuck and he probably wouldn’t try that again until he got bored once more.

In his moment of trying to distract himself he thought on the moments before the mountain exploded. Kaldur had passed him a USB, why? What… why?

Did it have a tracker in it? a virus? Was it a message in code? Why had he…

This was why Conner liked Nightwing, he always knew things. He supposed he was going to have to wait till he was excavated out of the mountain to go find him. he’d probably cackle and say ‘what, didn’t you take this specific route out designed for when the mountain is rigged to blow that Batman and I planned because we’re smart and prepare for everything?’ and Conner would shrug and be like ‘why didn’t you fucking tell me to do that?’ and then they’d move on and he could ask about the USB and Nightwing would say ‘it’s a weird inside joke, don’t worry’ and they’d never have to worry about it again.

It wasn’t till he was found by the league and had his injuries checked that he had a chance to ask.

Canary frowned at him, “we didn’t find him in the debris” she said, “we’re attempting to contact him but we can’t get a signal.”

He was staring at the USB, trying to figure it out for himself, when Canary came and found him.

“we found this in the debris,” she said, handing him a tracker, “it’s Nightwing’s.”

Conner stared at it.

“we didn’t find a body,” she said, taking a deep breath, “we think he, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle and Impulse have all been captured.”

Conner stared at the tracker.

Evidently, Nightwing was not as prepared as he’d thought.

Nightwing knew that the mountain raid could go _very_ wrong. He knew, Kaldur knew, Artemis knew, Wally knew, they all decided it was worth the risk.

What _wasn’t_ supposed to happen was the timing.

Something must have gone wrong with the break in because they were late. Keeping up appearances was difficult, he had to leave the main room once he was finished scanning the device, he was going to try and stay close to Jaime and Bart but they left before him. he didn’t get a chance to catch up and make sure they didn’t get hurt. Kaldur, Icicle junior and Tommy Terror would be in the grotto taking down Conner. Tigress probably went for Beast Boy in his room.

But Bart and Jaime were caught along the way and Tuppence split off. He was caught by her.

Kaldur worked it out. He could have gotten them to leave Nightwing if it weren’t for the fact that Junior pointed out that he was human and the reach could use him. he had to sneak the USB to Conner, who stared at him in confusion when he did.

And that was how they ended up in this mess. Nightwing, Impulse and Blue Beetle knocked out and shoved into pods to be taken to the reach. Conner unable to get out of the mountain fast enough to escape the explosion.

And Wally storming into the Hall of Justice, frantic.

Conner looked up at him, eyes tired but still angry. He had been healed from being stuck under the debris and now was waiting in the sitting room with a mug of coffee. The USB was in his hands, he was staring at it.

“what happened?” Wally asked, rushing over, “where’s Nightwing?”

“captured,” Conner said. Wally almost collapsed out of shock.

_“What?”_

“Kaldur took him,” Conner said, glaring into the distance, “and then gave me _this_ ,” he said, holding up the USB.

Wally snatched it from his hand and turned to the computer.

Conner blinked, standing and following him, “what are you doing? It could have a virus or a tracker or-“

“It won’t.”

“Kaldur-“

“isn’t a traitor,” Wally said, turning around to face Conner, “he’s on a deep cover mission, infiltrating the light.”

“but-“ Conner gaped, “but- he… killed Artemis.”

“no,” Wally shook his head, turning back to the computer and sticking the USB in, “she and Nightwing faked it, she’s… she’s Tigress.”

“and you’re telling me this _now_?” Conner said through gritted teeth, “Wally they _blew up the cave!”_

“it was a necessary risk,” he said, “he needs to cement his place in the light to make them trust him.”

“I almost died!” Conner grabbed Wally’s arm and forced him to face him, “he took three more captives, Nightwing being one of them!”

“and you’ll get them back when you rescue Lagoon Boy,” Wally said, flicking through the information on the USB, “he provided a tracker and everything.”

“do you even hear yourself?!” Conner shouted, “how can you be sure it isn’t a trap?”

“what?” Wally frowned, “Conner this is Kaldur we’re talking about.”

“right, yeah, Kaldur, our friend,” he scowled, “who lost the love of his life then found out Black manta is his _father_ , is it entirely impossible that he isn’t playing you?”

Wally looked like he wanted to punch Superboy. He turned back to the screen.

“here’s all your information,” he said, forcing his voice to be calm and cold, “go save your teammates.” He turned to the zeta tubes.

“where are you going?”

He didn’t answer, he just left.


End file.
